Comic-Con 2006: Interview: Tad Stones

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Stones, the director of the forthcoming Hellboy animated film, talks about the DVD, Mike Mignola and much more.

By Todd Gilchrist

A little over a decade ago, Tad Stones made his directorial debut with the animated feature The Return of Jafar, which brought the adventure and exoticism of Disney's Aladdin to the small screen. These days, he continues to help big-screen properties move from one medium to the next; his latest effort, Hellboy: Sword of Storms, not only bridges the gap between Mike Mignola's printed-page source material and Guillermo del Toro's live-action interpretation, but offers fans an opportunity to see their favorite comic book hero come to life again.

IGN spoke to Stones during the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con about his work on the forthcoming animated film, which premieres on the Cartoon Network in October and on DVD February 6, 2007. In addition to some appetizing details about the forthcoming DVD, Stones addresses the challenges of adapting Hellboy for an animated film, and talks at length about collaborating with creator Mike Mignola on what he hopes will become a successful series of features.

IGN DVD: I got a chance to see the footage at the panel and it looks terrific. Where does the animated film fit into the timeline of the live-action film or the comic book series?

Tad Stones: It doesn't. Mike [Mignola] basically feels like each new media version of Hellboy has got its own universe. I think even the game, even though it looks like the movie characters, the storyline is totally separate from the movie. The character relationships in our movies are those of the comics; we don't use the relationships between Liz and Hellboy which Guillermo thought were necessary for his movie. Guillermo had an arc figured out for those characters over the course of three movies, and we hope to see them all. But my feeling was hopefully we're going to have a lot of these movies, and I'm going to keep it as close to the comic as possible because that's the wellspring where everything came from. So these are standalone episodes, pretty much.

IGN: In recent years we've seen a wide variety of creator collaborations in comic book adaptations, from Alan Moore's complete detachment from V For Vendetta to Frank Miller's co-direction of Sin City. What's the challenge in striking that balance between keeping the creator, the audience, and the hardcore fans happy when you're adapting a famous comic book property?

Stones: I think it's all about the personalities and then the creative goals of the filmmaker. Guillermo has a body of work, not huge but very great, and a unique voice - especially when you look at his independent films versus his commercial films; even those are starting to come closer together. He is interested not in just what do I have to do to make a movie, [but] what do I have to do to this to make it my movie? What do I like about the character? Hellboy has so many facets to his stories of action, of the occult, of folklore, of relationships, that you can't show it all on screen, so Guillermo had to pick what he wanted and change the relationships to make the strongest story. For me, even as the lead creative person, instead of putting my own voice in, I loved the comics, so it was the challenge of how do I take the comics' voice, which is Mike's, and put it into our stuff. So when we analyzed the comic and did all of that stuff, it really created a director's point of view that was not just mine but it was like Mike standing in the background. So he was happy - basically, he created unique characters and stories, and whenever he gave a suggestion, unless there was like a technical reason why I couldn't do it - and I can't even remember this happening - I generally went with his suggestions, because they were really good and really exciting.

It's always going to be a matter of egos - you know, how much of me do I want in this project. And I've worked harder on this project than anything I've ever done, because I love it so much and I want to make the creator happy on a personal level; just like, I don't want Mike to hang up on me, not that he would. I mean, he would be very polite, but you could tell when he didn't like a thing.

IGN: Were there any kind of tone-based mandates when you were conceiving the animated feature. Earlier you discussed the fact that standards and practices might require you to make some cuts when it is broadcast on television.

Stones: Surprisingly, we ran the scripts by standards and practices on a couple of points and they didn't have any qualms. We're assuming that things will get more intense once they are fully animated, but basically we weren't given any tone or mandate at all. It was like, the deal's in place and now we can go do the movie. I think Mike was a little surprised that I wasn't writing the first movie, because that was a comfort level for him; but Matt Wayne was great, but it was like the fact that we got to do the story together put him at ease. But we didn't talk about tone; we just talked about Hellboy. So very quickly I got a feeling of this is how he think of these kinds of situations, or that is the kind of thing he wouldn't do. Even on some of the DVD extras, we're talking about, "oh, we could to do this with the fans." "No, it's too cute." And when Mike says it's too cute, it's never a good thing.

Also in the DVD extras, on the second movie, the company is totally behind it, and they let us animate a minute and a half or so of one of Mike's short stories - just for the DVD. It's not going to be on Cartoon Network, it's just going to be 'here's an extra little thing', and that's fantastic. Most of the DVD extras are going to concentrate on Mike's work: what went into the creation of Hellboy, his influences, how does he look at story, what does he like to do. I think a lot of time you see behind-the-scenes and it's all about moviemaking, moving the lights, painting miniatures, or doing something with CG, and this is going to be a lot more about what goes on inside a guy's head to come up with this stuff.

IGN: Since the film isn't completed, I assume you have not recorded a commentary track yet.

Stones: We plan to. I mean, that's what we've been talking about. Mike can be very self-conscious sometimes about his own stuff; like setting up this booth for this place, he has this great sketchbook that doesn't have Hellboy in it, and at the last minute he was going, "oh, we made a mistake. We should have put Hellboy in it. Nobody's going to want these [sketches]." I check back an hour later when it's eight people deep around his table and he's giving these things out. So he could at the last minute say "nobody wants to hear what I have to say," but I do think he has something to say. He could easily be a filmmaker, if he wants to work in that environment, and that's the plan for us two to do the commentary - basically his reaction to stuff, we thought worked well and what didn't work.